Critical discussion of: 'A farewell to glaciers: Ecosystem services loss in the Spanish Pyrenees'

摘要

The article by Grima and Campos (2020) (GC2020 hereafter) warns about the likely extinction of glaciers in the Pyrenees and argues that this fact, in addition to climate change, may pose a risk to water resources availability in downstream areas that rely on water resources generated within the mountain range. The manuscript claims: (i) that the hydrological contribution from Pyrenean glaciers has not been properly studied yet; and (ⅱ) that the rapid melting of the Pyrenean glaciers in the next few decades will pose a severe threat for the sus-tainability of irrigated areas in the lowlands of the Ebro Basin. We believe that the conclusions of GC2020 regarding the hydrological relevance of Pyrenean glaciers and the main drivers of hydrological change in the region are not correct. In addition, the suggested adaptation measures to facer water scarcity are either infeasible or have already been in application for many years. Overall, GC2020 oversimplifies the climatic and hydrological conditions of the study area, fails to account for the complexity of land uses in relation to market and distribution channels, and provide little context into local population characteristics and governance-related issues. Together, these issues severely limit the ability of GC2020 paper to provide a meaningful contribution to water scarcity problems on the Pyrenees region.